This invention is concerned with 4-amino and 2,4-diaminopyrimidines of general structural formula: ##STR1## wherein R is hydrogen, lower alkyl or ##STR2## one of R.sup.1 -R.sup.5 is C.sub.6-18 alkyl and one other is an oxygen bearing substituent such as hydroxyalkyl, alkoxyalkyl or alkanoyl, which are useful as antimicrobial agents especially as fungicides.
There are numerous compounds known in the art with similar structures and many of them are known to be antimicrobial agents, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,674,598, German Offen. No. 2,403,165, Chem. Abstr. 82, 107423k (1975), South African Pat. No. 7,500,491, and Belgian Pat. No. 831,938.
However, none of the prior art compounds have all three of the limitations that are imposed on the novel compounds of this invention:
(1) one of the nitrogen substituents is a C.sub.6-18 alkyl;
(2) one of the nitrogen substituents is oxygen bearing; and
(3) at least one exocyclic nitrogen is secondary or tertiary. And surprisingly, it has been found that 4-amino- and 2,4-diamino compounds with these limitations have much greater antimicrobial activity and much less mammalian toxicity than compounds without said structural limitations.
Accordingly it is an object of this invention to provide novel compounds of the above general description, processes for preparing the novel compounds, formulations of the novel compounds for use as antimicrobial agents, and a novel method of inhibiting the growth of microbial organisms.